As I mentioned before, I am now in my annual caffeine-free month. While that usually means I can't have chocolate (because of the small amount of caffeine in chocolate and because I'm such a hard-ass about my no-caffeine month), this year when I came up with the rules for my fancy chocolate tasting new year's resolution, I include a caffeine-free month exception which allows me to continue my taste this month.
But because I am chocolate deprived right now, I was wondering if that would affect my ratings of the various bars I taste. Will they taste extra good if it is all the chocolate I can eat? Or will the fact that I am continuing to sample these fine chocolates while abstaining from the cheap stuff make me lose the contrast effect to the benefit of the fancy stuff? I'll have to wait until next week to find out. Because just a few hours before I tasted this bar last night, I screwed up and accidentally ate some chocolate custard with chunks of Reece's Peanut Butter Cups. Oops.
Anyway, this bar was okay. It has become increasingly easy to recognize the single origin/simplicity style bars. The one I tasted falls solidly into that camp, with the same lingering bitter aftertaste that they all have. Don't get me wrong, this is a really good chocolate--far better than the regular stuff. All the ones I am tasting are. But if I'm going to go fancy, I would just rather have others over this kind.
